Our Bridal Shop

Chapter 12 - Alex

Sitting with Jonah over two pulled pork plates, the twang of country music bouncing through the old barn décor, Boston seemed a hundred million miles away.

When the first swallow of alcohol hit her stomach, her senses opened, and she took in a full breath, maybe the first one that day. She wouldn't drink until things twisted, probably not even until the glass's end. She had yet to formulate a plan and commit it to her journal pages.

Jonah made it a point to ask questions. Alex made it a point to not answer.

"You be easy on a country boy if he apologizes?"

Had her career not just imploded, she might have smiled. "Sure."

Jonah shrugged. "Figured you'd be pretty cutthroat now. Boardrooms and all."

Heels and business suits projected power, a bitch-fest. In truth, her days were eighty percent computer work, fifteen percent coffee spillage and five percent backpedaling to client's whims.

"I think Isabel gave you the wrong idea about me."

"She's been talking about you, nonstop. Swiping through pictures, asking questions."

"What do you tell her?"

"Said we were friends."

Alex nodded slowly. Nothing to betray how his rewrite of history landed in the pit of her stomach. "We were. Are. Not a lie."

"Not exactly the truth, either."

Jonah Dufort did not operate on half-truths. His glaze-over of their entangled limbs for his daughter's benefit must have gone down like a lead stone.

"I'm sorry for what I said the other night. Outside," Jonah said. "Seeing you brings up a whole lot I never got right in my head. I made my peace with what happened to Katherine, but I had answers then."

His face was a study in determination: steady eye contact, slow blinks, strong jaw. That he should keep pushing for truths today piqued her.

"You have answers now."

Her father, college, life. Around the fire pit, she'd told him all she intended to about the day she left. He acted as if he suspected the real reason she bailed. Impossible. Alex was alone in that truth.

Her constant, reluctant companion.

His gaze slipped, askance. He stretched out the moment before he took another bite. "So tell me about Boston."

"Winters are cold. People are great."

"What keeps you here when you should be back there?"

"It's complicated."

"I'll try to keep up."

Her drink was low, at the glass's end. The heaviness of the meal kept her from twisting sideways. She tapped the rim at the server.

"A deal went sideways, is all. Nothing that can't be fixed."

"And what about your husband?"

"Not so easily fixed."

Alex realized the moment she answered that he had been speaking about Boston, not her marriage. Her second glass came. She chased the Old Fashioned with a bite of her sandwich while Jonah sat back, measuring her, content to sit there until closing time and plunder her defenses.

"Never had kids?"

A piece of bread lodged in her esophagus, triggering a spasm of coughs and the necessity to be ambitious with her alcohol again. He pushed his water glass toward her. She took a swig to bide her time, come up with an answer that wasn't Never again after I lost ours.